A Few Takeaways as The Artist Tops Critics Choice Movie Awards
So much for The Artist's fade: Michel Hazanavicius's silent black-and-white throwback won both Best Picture and Best Director at Thursday night's Critics Choice Movie Awards, a nice bit of prime-time validation shared in part by George Clooney and the ladies of The Help. Read on for the full list of winners (and a few takeaways).
I'm a little surprised that Drive didn't enjoy a stronger showing than just winning Best Action Movie (nice category, Broadcast Film Critics Association), especially after the strong nomination showing it had, but hey. At the very least this would have been a relatively visible (and thus relatively opportune) time for Albert Brooks to close Christopher Plummer's lead in Supporting Actor. Alas.
As for the rest? Not much dazzling here, but...
· Thank God that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close didn't pull some sneak midseason awards attack. There would have been no coming back from that one; I'd be in a moving van halfway to Montana by now.
· A cinematography tie between Tree of Life and War Horse? Wow! OK.
· I imagine we'll be seeing Clooney back at the top of the Actor category in next week's Oscar Index; it's time (if not past time), as it may very well be for Viola Davis to take the solo lead in Best Actress.
A lot of that will naturally depend on Sunday's Golden Globe Awards results, which we'll be covering live right here at Movieline. Stay tuned for details, predictions and the like... and congrats to the CCMA winners!
Best Picture: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Acting Ensemble: The Help
Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life and War Horse (tie)
Best Art Direction: Hugo
Best Editing: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Best Costume Design: The Artist
Best Makeup: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Sound: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Best Action Movie: Drive
Best Comedy Movie: Bridesmaids
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Documentary Feature: George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Best Song: “Life’s a Happy Song,” Bret McKenzie and the Muppets, The Muppets
Best Score: The Artist
Joel Siegel Humanitarian Award: Sean Penn
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Comments
Did Kim Novak present the Best Score award to The Artist?
I wonder if she even knew she was in the news this week? I still can't imagine Kim Novak actually losing her shit over the freaking Artist.
I was surprised that they totally shut out Dragon Tattoo. Not only did Mara not score a Best Actress nom but they didn't even nominated her for Best Young Actress/Actor. What's going on there?
I really hope Davis doesn't win the Oscar, especially when you have 3 virtuoso performances courtesy of Streep, Swinton & Mara. And is it really "Clooney's time"? He just won an Oscar back 05! Give it to Fassbender or Oldman I say!
Beats me re: Dragon Tattoo. Usually a lot of these critics groups basically throw their weight behind one outlier or another until a more stable awards-season consensus firms up; in this case it was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Guess they picked the wrong Scott Rudin movie!
I'm with you re: Actress (if it can't be Dunst, then I'll take Tilda), but a clarification re: Clooney: I just meant it's time to move him to the top of the Actor field in Oscar Index. As far as the "it's his time" meme goes, absolutely, let's give Oldman some hardware!
(NB I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to see Fassbender win if/when he's nominated.)
I'd be shocked if they gave it to anyone other than Clooney. Fassbender has just hit the scene in the last 2 or 3 years so they're going to wait awhile before giving him a naked golden man.... although it would be fitting if he should win 😉
Their 'In Memorium" segment was touching, where they paid tribute to the characters who died in film this past year. Guy on Jetski from "Shark Night" brought a slight tear to well, as did repeated nods to Colter Stevens.
"Thomas Horn's career"
[polite clap]
Well yeah, The Artist hasn't faded with critics. And it probably will win best picture at the Golden Globes since that's split into two categories. Let's see what happens at the Oscars, though.
Also, I can't tell you how happy I am that Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep didn't win the top acting prizes. Not that I can say Clooney and Davis were any better, since I haven't seen their movies. But, as I've said before, I didn't detect anything prize-worthy about Pitt's acting in Moneyball. And as for Streep, well, there's just something about her that rubs me the wrong way.